Room 429, Tuesday Afternoon

[raspberryturk]

"--And you don't even smell that bad," Reno said, holding his ferret in his arms. He'd been going on like this since he'd woken up and decided to strike up a friendly rapport with his pet. "Kinda like sour somethin'-or-other or kinda gunky feet or somethin'. I've smelled worse, yo. I mean, like, I smelled worse, Mako. You should'a seen the kinda junk we had to wade through as Turks. And, I mean, Midgar. There was a city that stank. I miss Midgar. And here I am talkin' to you like a nut. You know, I shouldn't even have a pet? I only agreed to gettin' you when Rikku dragged me to the pet shop 'cause I crave some kinda companionship that ain't gonna leave me just because they find out I'm some kinda heartless government tool--"

That was about the point where he furrowed his eyebrows and frowned.

"And you don't care. You're some kinda weasel thing. So why am I tellin' you this?"

Mako blinked up at Reno lazily, and then set his chin down on his lap and attempted to sleep. Snoozing was hard when someone kept trying to strike up a conversation with you, after all.

[Open door is open!]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

"You're more a survivor than you think you are, Romeo. You saw Gaia. Scared the shit outta you, maybe, but you did good there. A lot of good. And on Doji's witch hunt, too. You got out there and you came back in one piece, and the whole situation sucks, but I ain't the only one in this posse who can't keep myself alive, yo. Hell, I'm probably the one most likely to be in a body bag by thirty."

Stupid, stupid, annoying blunt honesty.

"And that don't even bother me. I owe it to the place, Romeo. The mortality rate comes with the territory. Kinda fitting, really. I'm the guy who killed thousands of people with the press of a button, yo. And worse. I did worse than that shit, man. Now I gotta make good out there. Even if it's hopeless and stupid and I can't possibly make up for all the people who got hurt."

He scowled and clenched his teeth and considered throwing himself at the wall a few times to make sure he would shut up. Instead, he stood and made his way to his dresser.

"I need a drink. You need a drink? Shit, I need a drink right now."

[withoutverona]

"I need a drink. Possibly several drinks," Romeo confirmed. "My best friend is telling me he's bound and determined to go get himself killed out of some notion of honor, of it being what's owed. A drink would help."

He eyed Reno. "You ... you followed orders. I can't dress it up or defend it, but it wasn't your idea. Though, that sounds hollow to me even as I say it."

[raspberryturk]

"It is hollow. I got tequila, some scotch, I think there's some whiskey in there if I go diggin' under the socks. What's your poison today, man?"

Tequila for Reno today. It almost made talking about being an idiot fun. Kinda.

"It wasn't my idea, but that don't change the fact that I did it. I was a Turk. I was proud of what I was. Still am. For all the little kids whose daddies I dragged away so they could be forced into the army, and for all the towns I helped oversee the systematic murder of, and all the people who ain't even human anymore because of the shit ShinRa's science department put 'em through. You think Gaia's scary now? Be happy you didn't see what I was doin' for a livin' there before, Romeo."

He was shutting himself up now by twisting off the cap and taking a long, desperate pull from the bottle. Which wasn't going to work, really, but at least it meant his mouth was full for a moment.

[withoutverona]

"Tequila," Romeo said simply, and he was looking at Reno with new horror as he failed to make sense of what his friend was saying.

"I think I need to pray for your world."

[raspberryturk]

"Tequila," Reno repeated, looking at the bottle in his hand, and then just relenting and passing it over to Romeo. He was fine with scotch, too.

"Prayin' might help. I dunno. I was never into that religious stuff. Didn't do me any good growin' up, and when I stopped livin' under the plate and started learnin' all the ways to make grown men scream, it did me even less, yo."

He was now rummaging through his drawer for the duct tape, instead of the scotch.

He was also out of duct tape.

"I got no idea what kinda difference I can make on Gaia, I dunno if I can, or if someone's gonna see my baby blues and know what it was I got myself messed up in. I don't want Rikku seein' all that. I don't wanna be talkin' about this and I don't know why I am and change the topic, please?"

[withoutverona]

Romeo shook his head; all he could see in his head was endless scenes of war ripped from a thousand combat movies. Children starving. Men screaming.

"Why?" he asked. "I wish I could change the subject but it's all I'll be able to think on, and I promise I'll talk about something else in a moment, so ... why did you do any of it?"

[raspberryturk]

"I wanna be able to say I was scared for my life or they were gonna do somethin' to me to make me regret it if I didn't, and I can't even say that," Reno said, his words snowballing on ahead while he tried damn hard not to look as desperate to quit speaking as he felt. "It was all I was, is all. Wanted outta the slums, so I joined the Turks. Expected it to be dirty. Just turned out to be dirtier than anyone thought it was gonna be. And then it got worse, and worse, and it was like pullin' the rug out from underfoot, zoto. There was a war and there were terrorists and there were deserters and worse, and all I cared about was that we were Turks, and that was what Turks did."

Deep, deep pull of scotch, now.

"All I ever had to be proud of."

[withoutverona]

Romeo warily eyed the way Reno was drinking.

He supposed he could hardly blame the redhead.

"Are you still proud of it?" he asked, then closed his eyes. "I'm sorry. I promised a new topic. I like the way Yurika's hair smells."

... it was what came to mind.

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah. I'm still proud of it." Reno frowned and stared down the neck of the bottle. "Not proud of everything I did, but I am proud of what I was. Dunno anymore if I'm proud of what I am. Seems backwards, yo."

Deep breath. Hey. Topic change.

"I bet her hair smells like shampoo or somethin', huh?"

[withoutverona]

"Like ... cherry blossoms and vanilla," Romeo shampoo-modded nodded, still looking troubled.

[raspberryturk]

"I don't know what cherry blossoms smell like," Reno confessed. "No flowers in Midgar. That's ShinRa's fault, too."

Mentally. Kicking. Himself.

"Rikku's hair smells good, too. I don't know what it is it smells like, you know? I think she might change her shampoo all the time just to mix it up, seems like the kinda thing she'd do. I kinda can't tell the difference."

[withoutverona]

"I noticed that there weren't many flowers," Romeo commented. "It's such a gray world, even without the monsters and the plague. I hated it and I hate the thought of you going back there because I know I'll never want to visit."

He tried to shake it off. "Is it citrus? She seems like she'd use citrus shampoo."

[raspberryturk]

"I'd miss you, man." Reno took a deep breath. Frowned. "There just ain't nowhere else I belong. And it ain't the whole world that's gray. I mean, way the hell out there, there's life. You kinda just have to work hard to find it, sometimes."

A long pause.

"And you know, I think it is citrus. Kinda... fresh an' zesty, right? Oranges or lemons or whatever."

[withoutverona]

"You could belong anywhere," Romeo told him. "My father would hire you, if I asked. You'd do well in Verona. I wish I'd gotten to take you there but it's never seemed like the right time, and I'm terrified someone would get hurt and it would be my fault."

He sighed. "You're going home, aren't you. No matter what I say."

[raspberryturk]

Reno was staring down the neck of his bottle again.

"Yeah, man. I think I am." He tapped his fingers against the glass, swallowed a lump in his throat. "I can't think of anything I'd do in Verona that'd do me any good gettin' my head around what I did in Midgar."

[withoutverona]

"But could anything you do help?" Romeo asked skeptically. "I think you should do something that would help. I just don't know why it has to be there."

[raspberryturk]

"I broke it," Reno mumbled. "I murdered and tortured and stole and cheated and burned homes to the dirt. And now I wanna run away and leave 'em to deal with the aftermath alone. What does that make me? I'm low already, Romeo. I'm like dirt. Turnin' my back and goin' somewhere else, leavin' Rude and Tseng and Elena to deal with the mess? That's low."

[withoutverona]

"So what am I?" Romeo asked. "I ... perhaps should go home, not that Verona's as broken, but I'm not. Am I low?"

[raspberryturk]

"What's your head count, Romeo?" Reno looked up tiredly at that. "How many people you dragged away from their families to be tortured or experimented on or forced into military service before? You ever looked a monster in the eye who you could swear used to be human, and you could swear you could place the face, man?"

He frowned.

"Thousands of people, all at once, because there was a chance there were some terrorists hangin' out underneath, Romeo. Women an' children, and we blamed it on the terrorists. We could get away with it. We were the heroes, zoto." A long pause. "And I fuckin' missed. On top of all of it, I missed the fuckin' terrorists. You met 'em. Cloud, Tifa. You don't have to go back to Verona ever again. Go be with Doji. You deserve it."

[withoutverona]

"Cloud and Tifa are terrorists?" Romeo didn't understand. "I hate your world. I think it's Hell, with demons, and children -- you were a child, Reno, even if you thought yourself not one -- forced to kill other children. I think you should buy a corner of it, set it up to be a green space for those you love, and then come back here. Or come back with them."

[raspberryturk]

"Cloud and Tifa were part of a group called AVALANCHE, which they named after a different AVALANCHE that was even worse," Reno replied. "They'd run around Midgar, settin' bombs in the reactors that fed power to the city. Blowin' up the factories and the people in 'em all at once. Anything to hurt ShinRa."

He swallowed at the lump that he was trying damn hard to keep from forming in his throat.

"You know they wouldn't come back. Am I supposed to pack up Tseng and Rude and Elena and tell 'em they're comin' with me? It might be hell, Romeo. Yeah, there's demons and worse runnin' around the place. But it's still home."

[withoutverona]

"But it's awful. It made you kill to have half a chance in life," Romeo shot back. "I feel like I'm sending you off to a death camp, and I'm mad at you for being so noble, and mad at myself for ... not being."

[raspberryturk]

"I'm not being noble, Romeo! I can't sleep at night! I keep hearin' people screamin' and cryin', and metal twisting, and their eyes stare at me every time I close my own. I'm nowhere near noble. I just can't breathe no more. It's too damn heavy."

Excellent. Now he was getting all mushy.

"You're not sendin' me anywhere. You're tryin'. I understand that. If it was anyone else wantin' to go there, I'd be doin' the same."

He winced.

"Rikku wants to go."

[withoutverona]

"No." Romeo said, and to hell with being consistent, he was not Rikku and Midgar was not Tokyo. "Will you let her? I know she says she's a guardian, but she's ... she's strong but she's an innocent. Just Yurika's trial almost broke her. She thinks jail is funny."

He took another sip of tequila. "How long would you go home for?"

[raspberryturk]

"I don't want to leave her behind." There came that lump in his throat, which Reno was going to wash down with another swig of scotch, straight from the bottle. "I should. I mean, I'm afraid of a million things. That she'll get hurt. That someone comin' after me is gonna go after her just to make a point. I'm scared of the monsters bein' too big or someone else tryin' to end the world. I don't wanna lose her like I lost the other Turks, to some giant creature that some new psycho decided to summon just to get his way. I gotta go and she wants to follow, and I might stay forever, and I might not, and what scares me most- and this is real fuckin' shallow, go me- is that she's gonna see what I did and she's gonna hate me."

He was going to choke, now. Not on the words. Just, if he didn't choke on it, he was going to do something stupid like hiccup, and if he did that, then there were going to be tears, and he was being stupid right then, dammit.